![]() ![]() The flash is pop-up, released by a catch, so you firstly don’t get chronic red-eye as with most compacts, and with the XZ-1 you know for sure that it’s not going to suddenly fire in that 800 year old Italian monastery cloister’s and bring the wrath of the security guardia down on you. Many pretenders almost immediately stop down to 3.6 or less as soon as you extend the tele. Image quality is excellent, it’s got many excellent features and some (but not a ridiculous amount) of the bells and whistles like pet recognition, and some very good touches.ġ0MP sensor, and the fast lens is fast all the way – 1.8 wide, 2 at mid-length and 2.2 at telephoto. The rest of the camera is pretty much flawless. ![]() So after whining and whining and whining about what it does wrong, what does this US$500 do right? Everything else. With the XZ-1 you just have to hope the camera guesses the exposure right. The fastest and most efficient way to get a shot right is the old “aim at the desired exposure point and AE lock, aim at the subject and focus lock, recompose and fire”. Just as frustrating is the omission of an exposure lock button. In aperture or shutter priority, the command dial does what’s expected, but the rear ring does nothing (such as, oh, exposure compensation?). On the XZ-1 the command dial changes ISO. drops/raises shutter speed and raises/drops aperture at a constant exposure. There are a number of these kind of handling flubs from the designers – in “P” mode the command dial normally shifts the programme, i.e. It’s also quite low down on the back of the body, so not too easy to reach while shooting. Oh sure, you can use the menu selector button/ring to change things, but this control is small, easy to accidentally push to select, and doesn’t dedicate to the commonly needed paramater adjustment. The XZ-1 has the first of these waxed with that great control ring around the lens, but not the other. With your index finger you adjust one, with your thumb the other while you simultaneously get your scene composed. This is why SLRs almost always have a command dial on the top by the shutter button, and one on the back. To rapidly set up a shot you want control over aperture and shutter speed – or one of these and something like exposure compensation. The XZ-1 is missing two critical elements that all serious cameras have – a dual command dial and an exposure lock. Except just at the line they dropped the ball. Olympus has come so close to a smasheroo of a compact for the keen amateur or pro wanting an always-on-them pocket-able camera to get that Pulitzer Prize winning reportage shot (or the $50,000 topless snap of Lady Gaga). The follow-up model Olympus XZ-2 appeared in 2012 and features the same lens, while adding an improved sensor, tilting touch-screen and a two-mode control dial around the lens.Along with the solid, practical body and top-notch lens, it also has a beautifully machined alloy bezel around the lens to allow fast, handy changing of shooting parameter, giving the XZ-1 better ‘handling’, that again amorphous term describing how easy it is to get the camera to instantly and intuitively do exactly what you want to get that shot. MILCs differ however in being significantly larger (with lens attached), and significantly higher-end, featuring much larger sensors and interchangeable lenses. Competing compact cameras which are capable of shooting in Raw mode include Canon PowerShot G12, Fujifilm X10, Nikon Coolpix P7100, Samsung TL500/EX1, and the previously mentioned Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5.Ī similar category to high-end compact cameras are mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras ("MILC"), some of which are in a compact form factor (with a similar-sized body), such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2, Olympus PEN E-P1/ E-P2, and Sony Alpha NEX-3/5. In the high-end compact camera market, its main competitors are the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 and Canon S95 though the S95's lens is considerably slower at most focal lengths.
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